Al-Qaeda was planning to kill Obama: Report

Published: Saturday, July 16, 2011, 12:30 [IST]

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Washington, Jul 16: Osama bin Laden was plotting to kill US President Barack Obama and Gen David Petraeus, Commander of US forces in Afghanistan, a media report today (Jul 16) said, citing information obtained from the material seized from Abbottabad-compound of the slain al-Qaeda leader.

"Documents recovered from Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan show that al-Qaeda spoke of attacking President Barack Obama and Gen David Petraeus," CNN said quoting sources familiar with the materials recovered from the compound.

It said the documents refer to an attack that would destroy the aircraft carrying Obama and Petraeus in the Af-Pak region.

The documents also referred in a more general way to a desire by al-Qaeda to attack the president and Petraeus, who will be departing soon as the US military commander in Afghanistan, it said.

According to CNN, a US official described the bin Laden documents as "him in his brainstorming mode ... hey, I have an idea, what if we did this." The Wall Street Journal on Friday said the al-Qaeda leader was plotting to attack the US on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

"Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Rahman suggested, according to US officials familiar with the intelligence taken from the bin Laden compound," it said, adding that the plan was only in the discussion phase.

Materials taken from bin Laden's compound have confirmed that he communicated with the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, CNN said, quoting a US official, familiar with the ongoing analysis of the documents.